Dutchie E-Commerce SEO: frequently asked questions

In this article, learn answers to your questions about SEO and Dutchie E-Commerce.

Dutchie E-Commerce comes with SEO capabilities that help your menu be discoverable by third-party search engines. 

Does Dutchie E-Commerce Embedded Menu come with SEO? 

Dutchie E-Commerce's embedded menu comes out-of-the box with SEO features that allow your menu to be listed in search engine results to help you attract more visitors, build your brand, and convert high-intent customers. Dutchie’s product-based SEO solution is included in its e-commerce embedded menu and can be activated by adding one line of code.

What does Dutchie’s SEO solution offer? 

Dutchie offers four options to support SEO: E-Commerce with embedded menu, E-Commerce Pro + Proxy, E-Commerce with subdomain menu, or Dutchie+ .

  1. Embedded menu - Dutchie E-Commerce with embedded menus is quick and easy to launch with just one line of code, using an iframe. Your Embedded menu will be partially indexed by google, driving, on average, hundreds of new site visits to your site per month, without paying anything extra. The embedded menu works well for most dispensaries, but not for those using Wix and GoDaddy website builders. Sites built on those platforms should use the subdomain menu or Dutchie+.
  2. E-Commerce Pro + Proxy - An advanced Pro menu configuration that makes your Dutchie storefront menu appear as part of your root domain to search engines.
  3. Storefront menu - Dutchie’s storefront integration hosts your menu via a subdomain such as “store.mydispensary.com” rather than an iframe. Your menu will be fully indexed by Google but subdomains are treated as separate sites by Google.
  4. Dutchie+ - Designed for multi-state operators and larger dispensaries, Dutchie+ is a robust set of GraphQL APIs that lets you build a completely custom cannabis shopping experience. These custom sites are fully indexed by Google, and you have complete control to invest in any and every component of your SEO.

How do I set up Dutchie’s embedded menu with SEO?

If you are an existing Dutchie E-Commerce customer using embedded menus, you don’t have to do anything. Product-based SEO is automatically enabled for you. 

How do I set up E-Commerce Pro + Proxy?

Setup is handled during the onboarding process when you upgrade to E-Commerce Pro. Contact support, your CSM, or your implementation specialist to get started.

If you are interested in E-Commerce Pro + Proxy, and you haven't upgraded yet, you can set up a demo to learn more.

Can I turn off SEO capabilities?

Yes. Go to Settings > SEO. Click the Enabled toggle to turn SEO on or off.

After I have the embedded menu with SEO set up, do I need development work to maintain this?

No. Once we enable embedded menus with SEO, you don’t have to do anything. We’ll keep your product-based SEO updated without any work from you.

How much does Dutchie’s embedded menu with SEO cost?

SEO is included in your monthly Dutchie E-Commerce software subscription fee for existing embedded menu customers for no extra charge.

Are attributes such as title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, product descriptions, and URLs customizable? How do I know if people are finding my Dutchie E-Commerce site in Google search results?

Dutchie’s E-Commerce includes built-in SEO optimization, making dispensary content search engine discoverable without requiring additional customizations.

  • Dutchie does not explicitly support manual customization of title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags, the SEO toggle in Dutchie Admin enables:
  • Making iframe content visible to Google.
  • Updating the <title> tag and meta description dynamically.
  • Setting the canonical URL for search optimization.

The ability to add XML sitemaps for further SEO enhancements.Using Google Search Console (GSC)

  • Go to:  Performance > Search Results
    • Click the + New button at the top of the report
    • Click Page
    • Filter to URLs containing dtche
  • If you see URLs in the list that contain dtche , that means that searchers are seeing your dispensary’s e-commerce menu pages in Google search results. 

If your site is not verified with GSC, you’ll need to verify it before you can see these reports.   

How can I tell if pages from my Dutchie E-Commerce menu are indexed in Google? 

Using Google Search Console (GSC)

  • Go to:  Indexing > Pages > View data about indexed pages
  • If you see URLs in the list that contain dtche , that means Google is indexing pages from your embedded menu.  

If your site is not verified with GSC, you’ll need to verify it before you can see these reports.

Where can I see conversions from SEO menu pages?

If you are using Google Analytics GA4

  • Open your website’s GA profile and navigate to:  Reports  >  Engagement  >  Landing  page
  • Click Add filter + and select: Include  >  Session source / medium  >  google / organic and then click OK and then apply.
  • Below the line graph there’s a search box. In it type the letters  dtche  then hit the return or enter button on your keyboard.
  • This report now shows traffic data for users entering from Google organic search onto SEO menu pages during the selected date range.
  • On the left side of the table, find Conversion and Revenue from SEO Menu pages.

Why isn’t my embedded menu appearing in Google search results?

There are a number of factors that can prevent Google from seeing and indexing your menu, such as:

SEO capabilities are turned OFF for your menu. 

  • In your Dutchie Admin Tools, go to Settings > SEO. Ensure that the toggle is enabled.

Your site’s age gate is blocking Google from seeing your webpages.  

  • Google can see the content behind most age gates. But sometimes, a site will implement its age gate in a way that prevents Google from seeing its content.
  • When this happens, it’s likely impacting indexing for many or even all of your site’s pages, not just the embedded menu. 

Your site is instructing Google not to crawl and/or not to index pages. 

  • Sites communicate with search engines using robots directives, and these directives tell search engines what pages they’re allowed (or not allowed) to crawl as well as what pages they’re allowed (or not allowed) to show in search results.
  • One of these robots directives – either the robots.txt file, meta robots tags, or X-robots tags – may be blocking Googlebot from accessing your menu.

When Google comes to crawl your site, your site already detects that it's Googlebot and changes the site’s content or experience. 

  • Some sites do this intentionally for valid reasons, some do it for spammy or malicious reasons, and other sites simply do it by mistake.
  • If your site is showing Google different content than it shows users or forwards Googlebot to other URLs, this could prevent your embedded menu from getting seen, crawled, and indexed by Google.

How can I get Google to index more pages from my embedded menu?

Start by submitting the XML sitemap generated for your Dutchie E-Commerce menu.

Beyond that, some sites using the embedded menu saw an increase in indexed pages after removing the rel=canonical attribute from the markup of the page where the Dutchie menu iframe is embedded. 

You can find this rel=canonical tag with:  

  • It looks like:   <link rel="canonical" href="https://www.mydispensary.com/ ">
  • Find it in the <head> section of a webpage’s source code  

How to remove the rel=canonical attribute 

This can’t be done in your Dutchie Admin Tools; this needs to be done by a developer or, possibly, in your website builder or SEO plugin.

If you have a developer available

  • Tell them you want to “remove the rel=canonical attribute from the main menu page – the page where the Dutchie E-Commerce menu is embedded.”
  • If you’re an MSO and your site has a separate menu for each location, you’ll need to remove the rel=canonical attribute from each main menu page.

If you’re removing it using your website builder or an SEO plugin (e.g., Yoast)

  • The process will be different for each site builder and plugin, and unfortunately, some won’t allow you to remove it at all. 

Refer to the Help section for your site builder or SEO plugin. If you can’t find instructions there, try Googling  [how to remove the rel=canonical from a single page in ________]

Is there an XML sitemap for my menu that I can submit to Googlebot? 

Yes. There is! Go to Settings > SEO. Under XML Sitemap, determine which option you need to use and click Copy to copy the robots.txt file to your clipboard.

What is an XML sitemap?

An XML Sitemap is a file that lists all of the URLs you want search engines to crawl and index. When you submit an XML sitemap, this simple text file efficiently hands all your important URLs to the search engines. It also helps your new content get indexed faster.  

Is an XML sitemap required? Will Google index the embedded menu pages without the XML sitemap? 

We recommend submitting the XML sitemap because it helps search engines to efficiently identify and crawl your site’s URLs, but no, it’s not required. Goolgebot can crawl the embedded menu to discover its URLs. Without an XML sitemap, it will likely take search engines longer to index your web pages, and they may not index as many pages. 

How do I submit this XML sitemap to search engines? 

  1. In your Dutchie Admin Tools, Settings > SEO.
  2. Copy the Sitemap command that looks like    
Sitemap: https://dutchie.com/embedded-menu/{your-site-unique-identifier}-sitemap.xml 
  1. Access your site’s robots.txt file. How you access and edit your robots.txt file will depend upon what site builder or platform your site uses.
  • If your site already has a robots.txt file:  Add the Sitemap command as a new line in your robots.txt file. Do not remove or change any other commands.
  • If your site does not have a robots.txt file: Create one that looks like the below, except uses the Sitemap command you copied from the SEO tab of your Dutchie Admin Tools
User-agent: *

Sitemap: https://dutchie.com/embedded-menu/{your-site-unique-identifier}-sitemap.xml

Can I submit the XML sitemap using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools instead?

No. Because the XML sitemap is not hosted on your domain (it’s hosted on ), the only way to submit it is with a command in your robots.txt. 

What if I already have an XML sitemap?

A website can have multiple XML sitemap files, and most big sites do. Your other XML sitemap(s) will include URLs from the non-menu portion of your site. This XML sitemap will only include your site’s menu URLs. 

How can I learn more about SEO?

Take a look at this 15-step SEO checklist that every dispensary should look through. If you are looking for more dedicated 1:1 support for managing your SEO, reach out to Dutchie support who can put you in touch with Dutchie-recommended SEO consultation partners.

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